Monday, May 1st
A huge protest is being planned for Monday, during which millions of immigrants will boycott school, work, economic activity, etc. to support immigration, or to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, or something.
“The great slogan of the American Revolution was ‘No Taxation Without Representation,’” [Juan Jose Gutierrez] said. “Millions of human beings today and for many years are being taxed, and they have absolutely no representation. In fact, they are being bashed every day and humiliated.”
Not to mention these “millions of human beings” are receiving a paycheck from which these taxes are being taken, health care, national protection, a higher standard of living, and why are they not being represented? Because they snuck across the border without letting us know they were coming.
It kills me that this turns into a race issue, or a human rights issue. It’s neither. We’re not trying to suppress people or deny them rights, America just needs to protect the sanctity of its own security; if it were to neglect this, there would be no America to immigrate to. But groups like infoshop.org, whose slogan is “anarchists make better lovers!”, see it differently. They bundle a very straight-forward issue with those that pull at the heart-strings of all but the coldest of heart, or the shallowest of thought… “but we’re human beings too” or “America was built by immigrants - we all have equal rights”. I feel like we need to organize a giant friendship ceremony, where we all stand around and hold hands, give lots of hugs, and reassure each other that we don’t personally hate those that are crossing our borders illegally, we just need to run an organized country. But then again, organization is probably racist…
“Let’s show the government, corporations and racist politicians that a powerful, united people’s movement has the power to win civil rights, workers’ rights and make history,” ANSWER, a coalition civil rights groups says on its Web site. “No business as usual on May 1!”
[admin edit]
Now that the May 1st protests have past, how do you feel it went? Do you think they accomplished what they intended?
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April 29th, 2006 at 2:31 am
Here in Argentina this coming Monday is “Dia del Trabajador” or “Workers Day”. Of course, this day is celebrated much like Labor Day is in the United States…by not working.
May 1st, 2006 at 5:25 pm
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of effect this ‘boycott’ has. My guess is that it can only hurt the ‘undocumented workers’ because if the economy suffers everyone will just say, “Hey, we know they contribute to our economy. That’s not our issue.” On the other hand, if there is not a major impact, more and more fencesitters will start to consider stricter laws against illegals without the fear of serious economic repercussions. A likely lose-lose for the ‘undocumented’ contingency.
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
I read that upwards of 1.1 million people were involved in the protest nationwide, some wearing t-shirts that said things like “I’m illegal…so what?”. To me it appeared that it was business as usual, although I did also read that the meat-packing industry ran at only half capacity for the day.
So when all is said and done, again it begs the question: what was the point of the protest again? Are we boycotting the economy to promote illegal immigration? Are we not going in to work to show that the process of becoming a legal citizen needs to be simplified? I still don’t get it…